Veteran Top Fuel pilot Cory McClenathan, who drove in a select number of NHRA Full Throttle series events in 2011 for Australian-based Rapisarda Racing, indicated on his blog on NHRA.com recently that team owner Santo Rapisarda has once again tabbed him as the team’s driver for the 2012 season.

McClenathan and the Rapisarda team will attend the first 12 races on the NHRA trail, beginning at the Winternationals in Pomona on Feb. 9-12, and will evaluate their season at that point to determine their schedule moving forward. In McClanathan’s words, “our plan is to go to the first 12 races and see how things are going if we are doing well we hope to just keep on rolling.”

After being released from Don Schumacher Racing at the conclusion of the 2011 season, the longtime Top Fuel ace made his 2011 debut at Heartland Park Topeka in a one-race deal with Dexter Tuttle Motorsports. After teaming with Rapisarda, he competed at Brainerd, Indy, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Pomona to close out the season.

McClenathan, 48, has been racing professionally in Top Fuel since 1991, collecting 34 career Top Fuel victories in 65 final round appearances, along with four wins in six final round appearances in Top Alcohol Dragster. One of drag racing’s most overdue racers for a championship, McClenathan famously finished second to Joe Amato in 1992 and would’ve likely won the Top Fuel championship as an underfunded independent had he not skipped the Grandnationals in Montreal, Canada. By 1998, he had already finished second in the title chase four times, and finished a strong third in the Countdown standings in 2012 before being relieved of his duties in the Fram dragster.

The popular McClenathan adds to what’s shaping up to be a strong Top Fuel contingent this season despite a bleak outlook at the conclusion of the 2011 season, thanks to a number of wild rumors – some of which were factual.